Homo Viator

Don`t be put off by the trailer. The movie is much better than the trailer will make you think and even though you hear and read some German, I can assure you that the movie is 99% in English. Three of the four travellers it follows are British, who do not speak a single word of German. So try to see it, wherever you may live!

If you have ever backpacked this is a must see and if you have never backpacked and always asked youself why we do it, then you may also want to check it out. When I heard that Germans had produced a movie about four backpackers in Asia (India and Thailand), I expected the worst: An unrealistic, exaggerated, stereotyping movie full of clichees. But don`t worry, the movie is far from that. It is almost documentary in style and does not forcefully try to convey anything in particular to the viewer. Thankfully, it does not spend too much time showing us how different backpackers can be. We all have our own backpacker stereotypes (The beer drinking Brit, The unpresent American, The Trance listening and group travelling Israelis, etc.), but the movie goes way beyond feeding and recycling those. It effectively depicts those seemingly unspectacular, but real, travel experiences that you can only have if you travel with time and can forget about your itinery and allow yourself to open up to and connect with locals and fellow travellers. Those are the moments, where you do not seem to be travelling anymore, but seem to have found a home among strangers, far away from home. To me those are the forgotten highlights of my trips.



Many scenes of the movie play in the Pune Ashram. My sister taught Yoga there, so I can`t wait to hear what she thinks about the movie and its representation of the Ashram.